Every year in our family, about a month before Christmas, we set up a glorious Christmas tree in a prominent spot in our home. A Christmas tree can be a wonderful symbol. Among other things, when we use an evergreen, it represents to me the everlasting life brought to the world by Him, even the babe in the manger grown into a man, who said: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26). Now, I wish to also reflect on some other thoughts that come to mind as I gaze upon the Christmas tree. I wish to reflect upon the “trees” of Christmas.

Everyone wish John good luck as he and his family move this month to London, England, for a new career opportunity. John has decided to leave us Yankees to work at a large, “magic circle” firm headquartered in London. While we are all excited for his opportunity (and for the opportunity we will have for free lodging in London!), we are of course sad to see him and his family move so far away.

This morning on the way to work, the woman driving in front of me down the 75 tossed a spent cigarette out of her car window. I watched it bounce on the pavement a few times before it hit my car and flew off elswhere. I wanted to get out and tell her that the world is not her ashtray!

One of my pet peeves (note the use of the term “pet peeve”, which means “a minor annoyance that can instill extreme frustration in an individual”- this is my acknowledgement that the frustration expressed here is over a trivial thing that just happens to annoy me) is people who smoke and then casually toss out their cigarette butts into nature, onto the street, or whatever, caring not one whit about where it lands or how it adds to the trash already inundating our streets and the nature that surrounds them. To me, it shows extreme disregard for other people and environmental hazards.

For one thing, people don’t like to drive down the road or walk down the sidewalk and see used cigarette butts nearly everywhere the eye looks. They are ugly- eyesores- and they contribute greatly to a general impression of trashiness. I don’t want my town to seem trashy!

For another thing, people throwing out their still smoking cigarette butts seem entirely impervious to the danger of starting a fire. The climate in Dallas this last couple of years has been much drier than average, meaning that the brush and grass surrounding our roads is more like fuel than vegetation. When I drive at night and some careless litterbug tosses out a live cigarette butt, the accompanying shower of glowing, red sparks across the roadway is impressive. But don’t these people think about the fact that this impressive display could start a fire, especially given the current tinder-like capacity of the vegetation surrounding the roads?

Come on people- you already know that smoking is disgusting in today’s society. There is no reason to turn the world into your ashtray! :)

Six weeks ago, a post appeared on By Common Consent proposing a “Scientology Rule” by which Latter-day Saint bloggers and, presumably, even non-blogger Latter-day Saints could measure themselves to determine whether they are appearing cultish to outside observers:

If your religious behaviours are such that if practiced by a Scientologist and observed by you would seem cultish, reevaluate them pronto! The best way to imagine this is to place our behaviours in the context of Scientology.

We have moved ABEV from Typepad to WordPress. The current theme is just a place holder. I will be trying to develop a better look moving forward, but this new url will serve us nicely. We request all to update their links, if they so desire, to the new url: